Grade: 8 Unit: 3 Week: 6 Content: ELA Dates: 1/14-1/18

Theme:Looking Back on America
Theme Essential Question: How does learning history through literature differ from learning through informational text?

Essential Questions:

Standards (Focus)
  • 8.W.7 Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
  • 8.L.3 Knowledge of Language: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

(Ongoing)
  • 8.W.2.a Text Types and Purposes: Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
  • 8.W.2.b Text Types and Purposes: Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
  • 8.W.2.c Text Types and Purposes: Use appropriate and varied transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts.
  • 8.W.2.d Text Types and Purposes: Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
  • 8.W.2.e Text Types and Purposes: Establish and maintain a formal style.
  • 8.W.2.f Text Types and Purposes: Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.
  • 8.W.3.a Text Types and Purposes: Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
  • 8.W.3.b Text Types and Purposes: Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
  • 8.W.3.c Text Types and Purposes: Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show the relationships among experiences and events.
  • 8.W.3.d Text Types and Purposes: Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
  • 8.W.3.e Text Types and Purposes: Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.
  • 8.W.4 Production and Distribution of Writing: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
  • 8.W.9.a Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Apply grade 8 Reading standards to literature (e.g., “Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new”).
  • 8.W.9.b Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Apply grade 8 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., “Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced”).
  • 8.L.1.a Conventions of Standard English: Explain the function of verbals (gerunds, participles, infinitives) in general and their function in particular sentences.
  • 8.L.1.b Conventions of Standard English: Form and use verbs in the active and passive voice.
  • 8.L.1.c Conventions of Standard English: Form and use verbs in the indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional, and subjunctive mood.
  • 8.L.2.a Conventions of Standard English: Use punctuation (comma, ellipsis, dash) to indicate a pause or break.
  • 8.L.2.b Conventions of Standard English: Use an ellipsis to indicate an omission.
  • 8.L.2.c Conventions of Standard English: Spell correctly.
  • 8.L.4.a Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
  • 8.L.4.b Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., precede, recede, secede).
  • 8.L.4.c Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech.
  • 8.L.4.d Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).

Objectives
  • Write a variety of responses to literature, poetry, and informational texts, notably the Constitution
  • Conduct an in-depth research project on a historical event of choice, followed by a multimedia report that included insights from historical fiction.


Assessment
Project
  • create your own country, write your own constitution, national anthem, and create your own flag
  • Read, research, and respond to different countries’ national anthems, and write about why it generates an emotional response.
  • Compare and contrast different national anthems.
  • Research the history behind three different national anthems.
  • Create your own national anthem.

Key Questions (match Standard)
  • Which key words or phrases evoke emotional responses?
  • How does the history behind national anthems determine what is written in the national anthems?
  • What events in your country’s history or your personal history can you pull from to create your own national anthem?

Observable Student Behaviors (Performance)

Vocabulary
ELA
National anthem

Suggested Activities [see Legend to highlight MCO and HYS]

Homework

Terminology for Teachers


Multicultural Concepts
Ethnicity/Culture | Immigration/Migration | Intercultural Competence | Socialization | Racism/Discrimination
High Yield Strategies
Similarities/Differences | Summarizing/Notetaking | Reinforcing/Recognition | Homework/Practice |
Non-Linguistic representation | Cooperative Learning | Objectives/Feedback |
Generating-Testing Hypothesis | Cues, Questions, Organizers


Lesson Plan in Word Format (Click Cancel if asked to Log In)


Resources
Professional Texts

Literary Texts

Informational Texts

Art, Music, and Media

Manipulatives

Games

Videos

Sight Words

SMART Board Lessons, Promethean Lessons

Other Activities, etc.



English
Language
Arts


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Week 8
Math
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Matrix

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Week 8
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Home K-2
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Home 3-6
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Home 6-8
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Unit 6